Sound quality is the hardest thing to advertise in consumer electronics. You can't hear a print ad. You can't hear a banner. The product's entire advantage is invisible in every channel built to sell it.

Sony was also mid-transition on brand. BE MOVED was replacing make.believe as the global line, and every category had to prove what it meant in its own language. For audio, that meant translating engineering into something a nineteen-year-old feels.